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According to a report in the Washington Post, Fidelity Investments now values Twitter’s stake at approximately 72% lower than it was when Space Karen bought it with the help of several big financiers in 2022. Fidelity estimates that Elon’s overall stake in the company has decreased by “$24 billion in value,” while his investors have lost several billion combined. That is a wild accomplishment for a man who sh-tposted his way into buying a social media site for $44 billion when it was worth much less than that.

In addition to Elon, the biggest losers include Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who’s lost around $1.36 billion, former Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey, who’s lost approx. $720 million, and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who’s also down around $720 million. A whole bunch of banks, tech investors, and venture capitalist companies have also lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Aww, shucks, you hate to see it.

When Elon Musk bought Twitter and renamed it X, he didn’t do it alone. Though the billionaire tapped his vast wealth to cover the lion’s share of the $44 billion purchase price in 2022, he also relied on bank loans and a long list of investors, the full extent of which was only recently revealed.

At the time, analysts marveled at Musk’s ability to attract dozens of enthusiastic partners. Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who rolled nearly $2 billion in Twitter stock held by himself and a Saudi holding company into the private deal, tweeted at Musk: “I believe you will be an excellent leader for @Twitter to propel & maximise its great potential.”

Two years later, Alwaleed says he is still happy with his investment. But to others, the deal looks significantly less appealing. Under Musk, X’s valuation has cratered — as Musk has acknowledged — leaving it worth as little as half of what he paid.

Since late last year, Fidelity has consistently valued the X stake in one of its funds 70 percent below the purchase price, a drop in valuation first reported by Axios. Figures released Friday show that Fidelity now values that stake about 72 percent lower than when Musk took over X, taking its overall portion of the company from a valuation of around $316 million to $88 million.

Based on a Washington Post analysis using Fidelity’s estimates, the eight largest initial investments that were reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission or otherwise publicly disclosed are worth about $5 billion less than when Musk bought X. His and his partners’ overall stake has shed $24 billion in value — a vaporization of wealth that has little parallel outside the realm of economic or industry-specific crashes, or devastating corporate scandals.

All but the second-largest investor declined or did not respond to a request for comment for this article. Fidelity declined to comment. Musk and X did not respond to requests for comment.

Among those shouldering the burden: Saudi and Qatari business leaders and royalty; Silicon Valley venture capital and tech investors; and Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey. Musk took out loans to cover the rest of the deal, borrowing more than $12 billion that banks have not been able to offload, news outlets have reported.

“Elon’s done a tremendous amount of wealth destruction since he’s purchased Twitter,” said Ross Gerber, who said he invested less than $1 million, a stake he now considers worthless.

“For the people who put capital into him for any amount,” Gerber said, “ … trying to explain to people how he lost” so much money “is not a fun conversation.”

Among top investors, Dorsey — whose stake has lost an estimated $720 million — has made his displeasure known. Last year, he said Musk shouldn’t have purchased Twitter after all, posting on social media that he didn’t think Musk “acted right after realizing his timing was bad.”

“It all went south,” Dorsey said.

Because Musk turned Twitter into a private company, it’s hard to know its up-to-the-minute valuation. But some things about its financial picture are clear: Advertisers, its key source of revenue, fled after controversies — some caused by Musk himself. Some advertisers were also put off by his decision to gut content moderation while restoring thousands of accounts previously suspended for breaking the site’s rules.

[From Washington Post]

“Elon’s done a tremendous amount of wealth destruction since he’s purchased Twitter.” LMAO, someone needs to put that one a bumper sticker. It’s time to break out your tiny violins and play a sad song as we pour one out for Twitter’s investors. I have zero sympathy for anyone who does business with Musk at this point. Just about anything Elon puts his X brand on is losing money left and right, and to top it all off, he’s also a horrible person. That said, let’s not pretend here that for some of his financiers, he’s basically been a useful idiot. I really believe that destroying Twitter, even if it cost them an extra billion or so, was the point. For the rest of them, as well as the idiots that continue to hang onto his every word…well, I’ll just say that it astonishes me that people out there still think he’s some kind of brilliant business mind.

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Photos credit: Olivier Huitel / Avalon and Getty